Home Sweet Home

The apartment is only two blocks down from my old dorm. I walked there quickly and arrived just as a little old lady was teetering up to the door. I buzzed the intercom, and the old lady asked me where I was going. The woman on the intercom answered at the same time, so I told them both that I was there to look at the apartment. The old lady lets me in, telling me that it's her apartment, that her daughter is the one who I just spoke with. Except for the Castilian accent, this woman is my grandmother. They would be the same height, and there's something in her eyes that reminds me of Nanny. I tell her that, much later, after having accepted the apartment and spoken with them for a while. She smiles and asks if my grandmother had to work a lot, too; I tell her that she was one of the most energetic and lively people I knew. Later she touches my arm and says, "You're like family already to me." Her daughter dismisses our conspiratorial whispering with a brusque "He doesn't need any more family, you silly old woman." Her mother looks at her defiantly. "Maybe he does."

Maybe I do, maybe I don't. We signed a piece of paper saying that I had forked over so much money as a deposit on the apartment, and I left whistling. This afternoon I go pick up my keys and begin my final trek to the apartment where we will spend our Spanish year. After inspecting a tad more thoroughly, I called my roommate Cathy and warned her that one of the rooms is in reality a grown-up closet and the other is enormous; we're going to have to work out a deal with that. Other than that minor problem, the apartment is nice, cozy, cute. Grasp the subtle adjectives at work here: all of these are words that should make it sound small. I live in a petite apartment.

My friend Guadalupe called yesterday, all giddy with excitement over her wedding in mid-June. Her wedding preparations have thus far included going to the Balearic Islands for her bachelorette party and sunning herself at her family's condo in southern beaches of Spain. I, in turn, told of searching for apartments and sleeping on a hastily-made cot on my friends' floors. But the lure of Spain still triumphs. We talked for a long time, and I realized how much I have missed our hour-long Syracuse chats. She lived in the same city, but since she was poor and we both were lazy, it was easier to call each other. She told me her wedding dress was ready and that it's gorgeous; she's a sneaky Spaniard, though, and won't tell anyone about it or let anyone see it but her mother and sister.

But I digress. There's an apartment to decorate, and IKEA waits for no man.